This TV has been replaced by the 34HF81.

Ultimate picture quality on DVD.

No set top box available. The remote is too limiting.

Love this DTV! I compared it against the Panasonic and Sony equivalents. Although the previously mentioned already have the HD set top boxes, I can't wait until Toshiba's come out. I agree with the previous review here on this board.

The build quality, performance and design. The contrast on this set is great. I don't use it but the audio system in the set suprised me.

Lag in channel changing.

I bought the Panasonic and after 2 weeks the colors on the picture tube started to run. A friend that services TV's said the tube probably had a leak in it. I acted quick and dumped it back at the dealer for a full refund. I shopped around and found the Toshiba. I have had this set for about 3 months now and I can't fault it in any way. I wish they had a direct view set that was a little larger but I will be very content with this one for a long time to come.
The remote is really easy to use. I have a Sony DVPS7700 DVD player connected with component cables and the picture is really great. The contrast and level of detail are very strong. Shop around. I found all kinds of prices on this model.

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Panasonic CT34wX50

Sharp bright picture.

Lack of adjustable immage tilt, the gray bands accross the top and bottom or sides when not filling in entire tube. Slugish remote, menu operation.

I am very pleased with the quality of the picture on this set. However, I must say, I am disapointed in the lack of ability to adjust the picture tilt or changing the gray crop bands to black. The bands are very very distracting when watching a letter box movie. The current picture tilt I have on my set makes me cringe. The lack of these two simple controlable items which Toshiba failed to provide will result in me exchanging the set for the Panasonic. Its too bad. The picture is phenomenal.

The picture - intense color, beautiful contrast, the RPTV's can not even compare (and that is viewing head-on, start moving around and the lead increases). It is also a very stylish TV.

Slow channel/input changing. It also would be nice to change the gray bars to black but that is only used for TV viewing and I don't really care about picture quality for that.

When I bought this TV there was no 34" CRT Panasonic or Sony 16:9 to compare against. In the 6 months I have owned this TV it has never failed to amaze me (or my friends). I live in an apartment so space was a consideration. In a big home theater room the 34" might be too small.

Price-wise, there is no doubt it is expensive (but worth it for those who like to surf the front of the technology curve).

To quote Ferris Bueller, "If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up, it is so choice".

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I compared against the 40" Toshiba 16:9 RPTV and the clarity and color made it a no-brainer. The WEGA was no even in the same ballpark picture-wise (you could drive a truck between the scan lines).

Great TV, clarity, purity and screen width

You need 2 people to unbox it - damn heavy. Video Source Selection, you have to scroll through all of them to select proper one.

It looks great, it sounds great, it shows you the picture it is ment to be. I work in IT Research and Developement so recently we have been experementing with Plasma screens for corporate stuff. And so far, this TV beats all of them by a magnitude. Picture quality is Great and the price is only 2500 instad of 20000 so if you are looking at plasma screen, then forget it, and buy this toshiba.

Someone posted that if you turn tv off the tube as not as black as panasonic - who cares - we are all watching tv when it is on - not off, and black is black when its on:) Other then that Video source selection could use some improvement so far you have to scroll through all of them to find the one you want. Split picture as well as channel switch imposes some visible delay - looks like it could use a CPU upgrade:) Here is the rest of my home stuff:

Denon AVR-5800 AV Revciever
Toshiba (god remembers the model) DVD Player
and God forsaken RCN cable company - that one does cause some signal deterioration.

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Pioneer, Panasonic, Sony, Eizo Plasma Screens

Great image once calibrated, connectivity, low price relative to other HDTV direct view

Slow input selecting, Grey bars on 4:3 if that's an issue, lot of image problems.

This review is for all those who want to know "how it is" when it comes to this TV. I'm not an audiophile, so i won't get into all the abstract terms which confuses the average joe who just simply wants to know one thing: is the image good? Well here's your answer:

I knew i wanted to get a 16:9 HDTV, the only question is which one: the TAU or the CW34X92. I read all the reviews for both TV's here, as well as anything i could read on the net. Many conflicting tales of some having color problems, other having geometry problems, etc.....What i found out is that the truth is somewhere inbetween, and i can only present you with my personal experience. First off, let it be known that i picked the Toshiba set NOT because i could tell any difference between that and the TAU: image preference is subjective and the way they are displayed in stores does not tell the whole story. SO you want FACTS and not opinions? Well fact: for me the Toshiba costs $1000 less than the TAU so that influenced my choice greatly. Fact: the Toshiba has a greater viewing surface (more image is a good thing). Fact: Toshiba has 1000 lines of resolution, TAU has less(not sure how much). Apart from that i could not see any advantage for either sets. The only other thing Toshiba had going for it is that ETOWN gave it a higher rating than the TAU; but then again they used technical stuff like color analysers and foot lambert and all that other stuff so it doesn't really help the average joe.

Now comes the part of the image: despite all the glowing reviews, the sets in the store looked really, REALLY bad when watching NTSC. But then again so did the TAU. Colors looked awful, the 4:3 mode displayed geometry problem, and the theater wide modes made everybody look compressed. Made me question why bother with a 16:9 ratio TV at all. And if you were not used to line doubling, all the images looked too soft and blurry (it's an optical illusion, at 480I your brain fills in detail giving illusion of better sharpness and detail)

Somehow i managed to convince myself that if i bought one, i'd get a "good" one that would be better than the 10 different sets i saw in the stores. Don't kid yourself guys, chances are, that's not the case. When i first got my TV i was DISMALLY disappointed. Poor geometry, still compressed figures on Theater wide modes, , colors weren't that great, and all NTSC material including my sat.dish looked awful. My old Sony looked better than this. So why bother you ask? Well here's when things turned around: For one if you're gonna buy a TV like this (either TAU or Toshiba or whatever) the MINIMUM you should do is use either AVIA or Video Essential to tweak your TV. My sharpness was way too high causing artifacts and almost a ghosting effect, and the contrast along with every other user control was tweaked to the max. EVEN after using the calibration DVD of AVIA/VE, i was left disappointed as the colors still seemed unnatural. I had to pump the contrast to 85/100 minimum to make the picture seem half decent (and in case average joe does not know, this is not good as it can burn out your tube)

Now here's the thing folks: if you're going to buy a $3000-$4000 TV, PAY for an ISF calibration or learn to tweak the TV via the service menu. IT'S WELL WORTH IT! i was a skeptic like everybody else, but then again i knew there was something fundamentally wrong with my picture. The ISF guy was amazing: first i learned that the rastor on my TV was off (and consequently that most of these TV's come as such cause it's within manufactoring tolerances!) but the ISF guy played with the geometry so that he equalized the defects the rastor was causing (note: not a fix, but a compromise that made my picture so much better!). He then proceeded to REDUCE my overscan, which was set in the 15-20% range to hide all the geometry defects due to the rastor. Now back in the range of 5%, i get more image and my TW modes look AMAZING....people barely look compressed anymore. Furthermore, after he tweaked my greyscales, my colors looked fabulous! Colors are rich and vibrant, even the most mundane scene of a guy in his room looks gorgeous when you see all the vibrant colors popping out from his bed, shelves etc....you don't need some lavish panoramic scenery of mountains and forest to see how good the colors are when properly calibrated. now even though my contrast is at a much lower and safe level, my colors still look 10x better because of the ISF'ing!

Final point? NOW the TV looks like $3000! The colours are sharp and vibrant on all NTSC sources, which is where BTW you're gonna see most of the diff in ISF'ing. To me DVD's always look good anyway, and to the average joe prolly also. So if you're debating which HDTV to get, my guess is after an ISF they all look amazing, but i can say for sure that THIS model in particular looks fabulous after ISF. if you're not going to ISF, i think you're doing yourself a great disfavor and choosing the TV is now just a game of chance where you hope you get one that is not so badly calibrated outta of the box like mine was. I can only imagine now how good HDTV would look....

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Compared with Panasonic TAU

Excellent colors and picture clarity. Relatively little geometric distortion vs other sets I've seen

Slow remote, very slight horizotal bowing at bottom of screen when viewing widescreen DVDs

I enjoy this set very much. It is easy to use and produces an excellent picture. The ISF guy who adjusted it was very impressed with the picture quality and the accuracy to which it could be adjusted. I'd recommend ISF adjustment to anyone who buys an HDTV set. The factory color temp was way too hot and the color guns weren't properly balanced (they weren't off, but it looks better now adjusted). If you don't have your set ISF adjusted, don't run the contrast and brightness higher than 50 percent.

The line doubler seems better than Sony's. On the Sony, I felt the upconverted picture was too grainy on NTSC broadcasts.

The sound is good (no worse than competitive sets) but the viewing experience is enhanced if you play the sound through a separate, decent sound system.

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First HDTV monitor owned.

Pure Flat Picture Tube
Line Doubler active on all inputs
Settings menu shows values for color, tint, brightness, contrast, etc.
Asthetically pleasing construction
Two HD Component Inputs
Scan Velocity Modulation appears to be defeatable when selecting Theater Mode
One of the few TV's actually made in Japan

None

Ok, I did have to wait 6 weeks to receive the unit but it was worth the wait (the day my retailer called in the order was a day after the last set in stock in Toronto was sold). Thus I received a brand new 2001 constructed set (no changes to report since the TV was released in January of 2000)!

Just so nobody freeks out about the price, I converted the Canadian purchase price of $2820 into American funds at $0.60 on the dollar.

Of all the displayes I've had the opportunity to spend time enjoying (including some high end front projection units with 9" tubes and line doublers), this is the most awesome video display I have ever seen for the money you spend. After the recommended 100 hours of burn in I pulled out Video Essentials and began basic calibration.

Out of the box, and set on Cool this TV is way to bright (something Toshiba is notorious for). I would estimate it pushing 13000K in this mode. Selecting Theater Mode put the picture to Warm and I felt (without the use of any equipment) that it was as close to NTSC standard 6500K as was possible. After an hour or so of tweaking the user accessable settings I sat back and fired up Gladiator.

WOW! Colors were rich and vibrant, shadow detail awsome, and not an artifact or any edge enhancement to be seen. This is how movies are supposed to be watched!

The best indicator was when my friend came over and I put in The Matrix. He had experienced this movie 5 times at a premium movie theater and knew what to look for. He was completely blown away by the quality of image stating the only difference was that my screen was not 100 feet wide!

One thing I do think Toshiba fixed however was the problems the other reviews indicated with the "bowing" in the screen. All four corners are arrow straight on my set and no bowing visible (guess it was well worth the wait to get a brand new, fresh out of the factory, set).

As I only have a satellite receiver to view "over the air" programming I have no idea if the tuner in the unit even functions so I cannot comment on the slowness of the channel changing. Nor do I know how well the sound system included works as all my audio sources are routed to my Marantz SR-780 A/V Dolby Digital receiver. Video Input Selection is a wee bit slow, but no 2-3 seconds as indicated in other reviews. There is no lag when changing the picture size from Normal to Theater Wide to Full.

One thing that did blow me away was that I finally was able to see the difference between DVD and Laserdisc. Both formats on my old Sony looked about the same, with the Laserdisc actually winning out of the DVD because of the way my Toshiba 2109 DVD player handled anamorphic conversion to 4x3 sets (it tosses away every fourth line). But now, with progressive scan, a proper 16x9 screen, and component inputs its more than just the cost of the media that killed Laserdisc so quickly - DVD is awsome!

One note to remember - if you want to experience DVD in all its glory you need component inputs. NTSC standard through 75ohm coax, RCA, and even S-Video is a maximum of 256 colors displayed at any one time. With Component its 16,000,000. Can you see the difference? You bet your ass you can!!!!

In the fall I'm going to pickup the Bell ExpressVu 6000 HDTV receiver (same unit as used on the Dish Network in the US) and start watching HDTV. I've seen HDTV on the unit at the dealer and WOW - its like looking through a window.

I could probably gush enthusiastically for pages on this set but I feel I've covered all the hilights. I would still like to bring in a Tech who understands the service menu and can properly calibrate the grey scale to NTSC standard but untill then I'll continue tweaking the user attainable settings and enjoy this fantastic piece of technology!

If you are looking to get your feet wet in Digital TV then this set has it all - performance, functionality, and most importantly - PRICE.

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Last set owned was a 41" Sony 4x3 rear projection
Side by side compared the Toshiba with the Panasonic TAU

Looks awesome with a Pregressive DVD player. Remote control is not bad. Two component video inputs.

Very slow channel change. Very slow Video input change. Slight bowing in top and bottom of picture.

This HDTV is a great performer. The only problems that ive noticed are more related to all 16:9 Direct-view TV’s... not just this Toshiba. The problems that seem to be inherent to all 16:9 direct views sets are slight picture bowing on the sides. The only serious issue that I have with this particular TV is how slow it is to change a channel. Or for that matter to switch through video input signals. It takes about 2 to 3 seconds to change a channel. That seems ok when written out... but in reality we are all used to immediate channel changes. This TV does take its time! On the more positive side, it looks amazing when receiving a 1080i HDTV signal. It also looks amazing when used in conjunction with a Progressive output DVD player. This TV knows when a 480P signal is plugged in, it turns off its internal converter and receives a pure progressive signal. It was confusing at first; the web site says it just receives 1080i and 480i signals. However the TV is indeed native to 480P signals. The Toshiba web site is misleading, as it does not mention that this set is native to 480P. As far as picture bowing, its extremely slight but noticeable if you are looking for it. Again, this is inherent with almost all 16:9 “tube”, direct-view, HDTV’s. I do recommend it, but I don’t see it as any better than the other brands. Actually, if I found another set that was the same price but did not have such a delay with changing channels or video inputs, I would go with that one. But… the price was right and for the most part, it is an excellent TV.

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Compared to Sony, Mitsubishi, Philips, and other 16:9 direct-view HDTVs.